Flying Boats - 1x or 2x/4x bomb loadout?

[BathTubAdmiral]

Lately, I got this:

Shouldn't flying boats generally have a 2x/4x bomb/torp loadout, as they carried them externally under the wings or wing struts?

At least I wasn't able to find any example of a central bomb bay/mounting ...

[sagaren]

The Short Sutherland comes to mind as one example.

[aeson]

The PBY Catalina has a bomb bay.

[oldpop2000]

Sept 17, 2019 9:22:15 GMT -6 aeson said:

The PBY Catalina has a bomb bay.

The PBY could carry 2000 lbs. of bombs and two torpedoes or four 325-pound depth charges. There was no bomb bay, bombs and torpedoes were carried on the wings. 

[BathTubAdmiral]

Sept 17, 2019 8:10:16 GMT -6 sagaren said:

The Short Sutherland comes to mind as one example.

The Short Sunderland had a really interesting construction - but 2 sets nevertheless:

Bombs were loaded in through the "bomb doors" that formed the upper half walls of the bomb room on both sides. The bomb racks were able to run in and out from the bomb room on tracks in the underside of the wing. In order to load them, weapons were hoisted up to the extended racks that were run inboard and either lowered to stowages on the floor or prepared for use on the retracted racks above the stowed items. The doors were spring-loaded to pop inwards from their frames and would fall under gravity so that the racks could run out through the space left in the top of the compartment. The bombs could be released locally or remotely from the pilot's position during a bomb run.

Normally, the weapons were either bombs or depth charges and the racks were limited to a maximum of 1,000 lb (450 kg) each. After the first salvo was dropped, the crew had to get the next eight weapons loaded before the pilot had the aircraft positioned on the next bombing run.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_Sunderland

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Air_Ministry_Second_World_War_Official_Collection_CH555.jpg

[oldpop2000]

Just something to consider with flying boats and float planes. They were designed for search and rescue, patrolling for submarines and enemy ships and transporting supplies. They were never designed for dropping bombs or torpedoes. They were good at dropping bombs on submarines that they surprised and depth charges but we don't know exactly how many submarines they actually sank. In the Pacific, they did sink transports because most of the time they were stationary especially unloading supplies off of Guadalcanal or docked in Rabaul, Japan or Truk, or other islands. They were stationary targets. These aircraft were very vulnerable and took terrible losses and many came back all shot up. I don't know if the game represents this accurately but just beware. In war, as we should know, necessity is the mother of invention and that's what happened to the flying boats, they were used as bombers because they were needed.

[jishmael]

Shouldn't someone theoretically be able to construct at least a good approximate of actual sub sinkings by flying boats by comparing Japanese and German submarine reports and losses with British and American Air reports?

Has no such effort been made?

[oldpop2000]

Sept 18, 2019 10:51:31 GMT -6 jishmael said:

Shouldn't someone theoretically be able to construct at least a good approximate of actual sub sinkings by flying boats by comparing Japanese and German submarine reports and losses with British and American Air reports?

Has no such effort been made?

The USAAF ASW squadrons lost 12 planes and 102 men due to operational and non-operational losses. Navy patrol bombers in the Bay of Biscay lost 16 aircraft and 157 crewman. US ASW aircraft were credited with sinking 13 U-boats from February 1943 to the end of the Bay of Biscay operations. US PBY's sank 25 submarines out of 60 Axis submarines sunk in all theatres. 13 were sunk by PB4Y's.




The German Submarine Fleet lost 264 U-boats to ships including merchant ships, 250 to aircraft, 46 missing, 43 to raids on ports, 35 to mines, 3 captured, 155 surrendered, 238 scuttled and 79 to other reasons for a total of 1154. 

[felixg92]

Not great for torpedo delivery, lumbering, large, and slow, and highly vulnerable while making torpedo attacks to flak and fighters.

Sinking immobile merchies at anchor while unloading is one thing, attacking warships underway is another. Pby catalinas did have some limited success on "black cat" night missions though and the Ijn was planning on using Mavis or Helen's to attack pearl harbor a 2nd time in 1942 at night, presumably with torpedoes.

Generally larger ac were not better torpedo platforms. And too valuable for recon and patrol work to be risked.

[oldpop2000]

Sept 18, 2019 21:31:31 GMT -6 felixg92 said:

Not great for torpedo delivery, lumbering, large, and slow, and highly vulnerable while making torpedo attacks to flak and fighters.

Sinking immobile merchies at anchor while unloading is one thing, attacking warships underway is another. Pby catalinas did have some limited success on "black cat" night missions though and the Ijn was planning on using Mavis or Helen's to attack pearl harbor a 2nd time in 1942 at night, presumably with torpedoes.

Generally larger ac were not better torpedo platforms. And too valuable for recon and patrol work to be risked.

Your comments are correct.... in a perfect world and trust me, the Pacific War was not a perfect world. The US Navy had to use what it had to satisfy mission and strategic objectives. The US Army Air Force was busy bombing Rabaul, Lea and salamaua along with transports moving south. Production of medium and heavy bombers were prioritized on the War in Europe, not in the Pacific. As to your other comment, the Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 twin engine bomber was an excellent torpedo plane, the Bristol Beau fighter was another, the Tupolev TU-2, and the list goes on. Don't just focus on single-engine torpedo bombers on carriers. 

[felixg92]

Flying boats. And this is the simulation not history. Our exampling doesnt specifically apply though they are fun to dredge up.

I didnt leave those ac out, i omitted them on purpose.
Also left out Heinkel He-111 etc, and all the ijn land based torpedo capable medium naval attack bombers(nell, sally etc), nevermind trying to outdo captain obvious pointing to PoW and Repulse the very best of examples, but again these are not flying boats doing the shooting they are medium bombers and strike aircraft.

Aircraft in game are randomly generated platforms not specific historic types. The naming is pretty random as we know, kinda unintentionally image bashing funny too sometimes! And frequently when a fighter called catalina shoots down something else in a dogfight, i do chuckle a little....fighter...catalina.....lol. Yeah i know i can rename.

But back to the op's topic, flying boats should recieve a 2 torps at medium or heavy loadout when they get the capability available. Later it could evolve to 4 torpedoes at heavy loadout, probably suffer a lower chance to actually successfully attack, and be easier to shoot down, I hardly use these for anything after i get medium bombers though.

We could add this to the request for rockets for planes as well.

[jwsmith26]

Here is some historical data on one of the USN long range patrol bombers operated in WW2, the Consolidated PB4Y-1. I have extracted most of this information from the monograph, "NAVAL AVIATION COMBAT STATISTICS—WORLD WAR II". The PB4Y-1 was a long range naval patrol bomber that was essentially a B-24 bomber with relatively minor modifications for use over water. (The data below pertains to the PB4Y-1 rather than the modified PB4Y-2 Privateer.) This is just one of the suite of long range patrol bombers deployed by the USN. This plane did not enter service until 1943 and the navy operated something under 1,000 of these planes during WW2. 

These planes were tough customers. During the course of the war they encountered some 550 enemy combat planes and shot down 30% of them, while losing just 9 of their own bombers.

During the Pacific war they attacked 1180 enemy ships, though only 53 warships. They had a bomb load of 8,000 pounds but seldom carried over 2,500 pounds on patrol, with the saved weight being devoted to extra fuel. They never carried torpedoes and they typically carried a mixed bomb load because they were not sure of the type of target they would encounter on patrol. Because their typical targets were unarmed merchant ships they often carried and dropped relatively small bombs.  They even dropped over 500 incendiary bombs, which proved effective in destroying merchant vessels.

While there is no mention of attacks against enemy submarines in the data, these attacks against enemy shipping would definitely have had an impact on enemy commerce.

PB4Y targets and bombs expended
1180  ships attacked (53 warships)
2378  100lb bombs
1167  250lb bombs
577   500lb bombs
27    1000-2000lb bombs
548   Incendiary bombs

[oldpop2000]

Sept 19, 2019 11:49:10 GMT -6 jwsmith26 said:

Here is some historical data on one of the USN long range patrol bombers operated in WW2, the Consolidated PB4Y-1. I have extracted most of this information from the monograph, "NAVAL AVIATION COMBAT STATISTICS—WORLD WAR II". The PB4Y-1 was a long range naval patrol bomber that was essentially a B-24 bomber with relatively minor modifications for use over water. (The data below pertains to the PB4Y-1 rather than the modified PB4Y-2 Privateer.) This is just one of the suite of long range patrol bombers deployed by the USN. This plane did not enter service until 1943 and the navy operated something under 1,000 of these planes during WW2. 

These planes were tough customers. During the course of the war they encountered some 550 enemy combat planes and shot down 30% of them, while losing just 9 of their own bombers.

During the Pacific war they attacked 1180 enemy ships, though only 53 warships. They had a bomb load of 8,000 pounds but seldom carried over 2,500 pounds on patrol, with the saved weight being devoted to extra fuel. They never carried torpedoes and they typically carried a mixed bomb load because they were not sure of the type of target they would encounter on patrol. Because their typical targets were unarmed merchant ships they often carried and dropped relatively small bombs.  They even dropped over 500 incendiary bombs, which proved effective in destroying merchant vessels.

While there is no mention of attacks against enemy submarines in the data, these attacks against enemy shipping would definitely have had an impact on enemy commerce.

PB4Y targets and bombs expended
1180  ships attacked (53 warships)
2378  100lb bombs
1167  250lb bombs
577   500lb bombs
27    1000-2000lb bombs
548   Incendiary bombs

U-326 was sunk on 25 April 1945 in the Bay of Biscay by a PB4Y of VPB-103 using air-dropped acoustic homing torpedoes nicknamed Fido's. Another U-boat U-681 was sunk on 10 March 1945 by a PB4Y of VPB103 using a salvo of depth charges.
U-966 was sunk on 10 November 1943 by a PB4Y in the Bay of Biscay by VB-105.

Here is a document on the sinking's of submarines with date, type of aircraft etc. Enjoy  Appen3.pdf (96.8 KB)

[jishmael]

Thanks for the detailed historical information and sources.

[oldpop2000]

Sept 20, 2019 0:29:04 GMT -6 jishmael said:

Thanks for the detailed historical information and sources.

It is a pleasure and an honor to provide such sources for the improvement of all our discussions and knowledge. If you need more, just ask. Here is a link to a thread on the General History Discussion that I created for archives and sources -

nws-online.proboards.com/thread/1112/useful-archives-websites

You might find it very useful.